Living in San Giorgio di Pesaro and Kingston

On Saturday evening it had began to rain. On Sunday it rained all day.

Our first stop was the Schonbrunn Palace, summer home of the Austrian Emperors and whose tube stop was on the same line as our hotel. Had a very informative tour and we were been looking forward to seeing the gardens but wind and rain made it impossible. So we took outselves to the Museum of Modern Art. Big mistake. Lovely building, lovely cafe but for me a rather boring collection. This took us into early afternoon.

Not wanting to go to another museum we wandered the streets for a bit and it left me wondering what was worse – a wet Sunday afternoon in Vienna or a wet Sunday afternoon in Belfast. At least in Belfast the shops open from 1.00 to 6.00. In Vienna it is only the museums and cafes and perhaps the Belfast museum is more interesting than the Vienna Museum of Modern Art.

Having tasted Austrian food for two evenings we opted for a change and went to a Sri Lankan restaurant. We saw it advertised near the opera house and discoverd it’s nearest tube stop was on the same line as the hotel. We had a really good meal. We had rice, string hoppers, hoppers with chicken curry and various vegetable curries. All finished off with Wattalapam (a dessert flavoured with cardmoms, cinnamon etc). Very tasty and something you can’t get in a wet Sunday evening in Belfast.

(p.s. Belfast is the photo on the left)

Not believing the pharmacist at the “knock 3 times and ask for gaviscon” chemist the previous night our first activity was going to another chemist who immediately told us the same thing but did have Rennies in a sugar free form and so we were able to move onto other things.

First stop was the Kunsthistorisches Museum which has a fantastic art collection.. Far too much to see and take in but I was really impressed by the Holbeins.

After a couple of hours in the gallery we had a stroll through the  town and then joined a tour of the opera house. According to our guide book the architect of the building committed suicide when at the opening the Emperor said it looked like a railway station. A rather harsh judgement.

 The tour was followed by tea and cake in one of the less famous cafes but according to the blurb outside a cafe where both mozart and beethoven had played or at least had a cup of coffee.

In the evening we went to the Kuckuck (the cuckoo) restaurant only because it looked nice through the window. We discovered later that it only rates 167th in TripAdvisor’s list of restaurants but I would rate it higher. It had a warm atmosphere, the owners were friendly and the food was Austrian and very tasty. Looking round a supermarket we had realised that it was asparagus season as the shelves had asparagus in  from white through pale green to dark green and everything from thin to think. So I felt it was a good sign when the restaurant had a special asparagus menu on offer. I did go for asparagus with an asparagus and speck salad while Bill opted for a starter with dumplings. Main course for Bill was boiled beef with various sauces and I had chicken breast in paprika sauce served with dumplings. The enjoyable meal was accompanied by the sound of the other diners and an occasional chirp from the 3 or 4 cuckoo clocks in the room.

We then walked back to Karlsplatz underground station to get the tube to the hotel. Not a place to linger as was confirmed later when we noted in our guide that it was one of two places best avoided late at night.

Here we are in Vienna for a weekend. Drove up throught fantastic scenery and a mixture of sunshine and heavy rain. With the help of TomTom we found the hotel “An der Wien” easily. Hotel has car parking, is about 100 metres from a tube line . It is also very clean, friendly and the room is large and bright.

The first walk around Vienna in the evening was to find a chemist that sells gaviscon as Bill had forgotten to bring his supply. I immediately put my german into practice as I asked a guy selling newspapers at the corner “gibt es hier in de Nahe eine apotheke”. In fluent english he told us there was one about 50 metres away. I, unwillingly, slipped back into English and told him it was closed. As it was now 6.30 he said we would have to find an all-night chemist and the address will be on the door of every Chemist. We checked, got the address and within 5 minutes had found an all-night chemist. There was a sign directing us to a side door where we rang a bell. A man opened a small window in the door and asked what we wanted. Then, leaving us out in the street, he went off to look for Gaviscon, returning 5 minutes later to inform us that it was made in Germany and so not available for sale in Austria. Taken by surprise we asked if he had anything for indigestion. Another 5 minutes and he came back with a herbal preparation and a bill for 9 euros. 

A meal that evening of asparagus soup, wienersnitzel and a walk around the old centre eating a rather large ice-cream meant that the herbs were needed – and they worked.